The third and most important item is the charcoal. This is the part of the filter that removes the most impurities from the water. In order to get charcoal in the wild, you must make it yourself. The first step in making charcoal is building a fire. Once you have your fire, put one large log on the fire and wait until the log is totally burned but has not turned into ash. Using another stick, take the burn pieces of charcoal off of the log. Keep these pieces safe until the building process.

The next materials include stones and gravel. If you are in an area that does not have sand, then do not waste your time looking for it because it is not the most important part of the filter. You only need about a handful off each of these materials. The last material is a type of cloth. Although it is not found in the wild, cloth may be the easiest item to retrieve on this list.

After collecting the materials, we can start build the filter. It is actually very simple and easy. The first thing that you should do is roll the bark into a cone and use your knife to poke a hole through the overlapping part. String the leaf or branch that you picked earlier through the hole and tie off the end using a square knot.

Now, take your pieces of charcoal and put them in the center of the piece of cloth you have. Now bring all the corners of the cloth together so the charcoal sits in the bottom. Now, covering the charcoal, use your hand to smash it into a powder. Put the part with charcoal into the cone and spread out the corners so you can see the charcoal.

Pile on the gravel and then the rocks and your filter is set to go.

After that, boil the water For purification. We will need an area where clay is under the soil. We will use the clay to line the hole in the ground so that no water leaks into the earth. This is pretty simple, dig two holes, one for boiling and one to get clay. Take the clay and add a little bit of water to it so you can apply it to the hole. Seal off all the dirt. Now you can pour water into it and get your fire going along side it. You will need to find dry rocks to do this. Put a few rocks in the fire and once they have been in the fire for a while, you can put them into your water using another two sticks. You know its boiling when its bubbling.

Now you know how to put together a water filter in the wild. But this method for water purification is for SURVIVAL CONDITIONS ONLY, and it is not the best method of purifying water if you are near civilization. During “normal” times, find and install a qualified water filter for your drinking water.

Carbon is a substance that has a long history of being used to adsorb impurities and is perhaps the most powerful adsorbent known to man. One pound of carbon contains a surface area of roughly 125 acres and can adsorb literally thousands of different chemicals. Activated carbon is carbon that is electro-positively charge, making it even more attractive to chemicals and impurities. As the water passes over the positively charged carbon surface, the negative ions of the contaminants are drawn to the surface of the carbon granules.

Activated carbon filters used for home water treatment typically contain either granular activated carbon (GAC) or powdered block carbon. Although both are effective, carbon block filters generally have a higher contaminant removal ratio. The two most important factors affecting the efficiency of activated carbon filtration are the amount of carbon in the unit and the amount of time the contaminant spends in contact with it. The more carbon the better. Similarly, the lower the flow rate of the water, the more time that the contaminants will be in contact with the carbon, and the more absorption that will take place. Particle size also affects removal rates.

Activated carbon filters are usually rated by the size of the particles they are able to remove, measured in microns, and generally range from 50 microns (least effective) down to 0.5 microns (most effective).

The most common carbon types used in water filtration are bituminous, wood, and coconut shell carbons. While coconut shell carbon typically costs 20% more than the others, it is generally regarded as the most effective of the three. All of our activated carbon filters use coconut shell carbon.

The quality of carbon is typically measured by ash content, iodine number, and molasses number. It is important to have a carbon material with a good mixture of both large and small pores to catch pollutants. If the surface has many tiny pores (micro-porous carbon) then the pores will not be large enough to let pollutants to enter them. On the other hand, if the total surface area contains mostly large pores (macro-porous carbon) then there will not be very many chemical bonding sites. >

Quality of the carbon
Make sure you buy quality activated carbon. Cheap carbon often contains a great deal of ash, and will become deactivated (meaning that it stops removing compounds) very quickly. Another important thing is if you use carbon with a lot of ashes in water, these ashes will start floating and make it look dirty.
When it comes to freshwater aquarium filtration, there are many options to choose from. One of the most popular filtration methods involves activated carbon filter media. Yet, using carbon in a freshwater aquarium is a controversial subject. Some people believe it is a waste of time and never use carbon except for special occasions. Others use a great deal of carbon and hope to polish the water and remove odours.

As a fish lover, I always do the best to keep my tank as clean as possible. I tried both ways, with or without activated carbon. After failures and trails, I can say if use properly, carbondoes polish the water and remove odours effectively. Sure, you may continue to insist the anti-carbon point of view,butif you decide to use carbon, there are several things you need to know in order to achieve the optimal aquarium.